Finally! I can't wait for someone to shoot & kill me with their legal gun!

Yee haw!

Good, now the people of DC won't have to run all the way next door to Virginia to get guns to keep that murder rate climbing.

What's really amazing about this ruling is that it was 5-4, and almost perfectly down party lines. We are in for a world of hurt if we can't get the partisanism out of our judicial system.

Don't be surprised when DC crime rates start to fall!

There are enormous amounts of data to show that states with good concealed carry laws have benefitting in declines in crime after the laws were passed. Florida adopted a right-to-carry law in 1987. Between 1987 and 1996 the homicide rate declined by 36%, the firearm homicide rate declined by 37% and the handgun homicide rate declined by 41%.

"Good, now the people of DC won't have to run all the way next door to Virginia to get guns to keep that murder rate climbing."

Virginia is scary when it comes to guns. They almost give them away in that state.

have benefit*

sorry! my bad! i'm too psyched!

Woohoo! Should see lower crime rates in DC within a few years.

But cabaker was that decline due to the concealed weapons law? Or were there other factors as well. Did the homicide rate decline in states with out a right to carry law during that same time frame?

Come on, will this *really* impact crime at all? Criminals won't go the legal route of obtaining weapons anyway.

"The court essentially eliminated the extremes on both freedom and restrictions."
This is just how it should be. There's no need for ridiculous controls on firearm purchase, but we shouldn't be handing them out like candy on Halloween either. Not that it ever mattered for me, really... I have and love my hunting rifle, but I never had use for a handgun.

DC's crime rate had already been in decline since the early to mid 1990's.

Lil if you can find other factors that would contribute to that HUGE of a decrease, I'd love to hear em! I honestly can't think of anything that would make such a large and immediate impact, and since the national trends increased I would say its a pretty safe bet to say that these laws caused the effect.

Florida is just one example though, there are many other cases on a state level even down to a town level. There was a town in GA that made owning a gun MANDATORY and their crime rate went down by 86%.

But the story is the same, pass laws that let citizens obtain a permit to carry and crime decreases.

When I said earlier that guns are almost given aaway in VA, I was joking. Then I remembered someting I'd read last year so I searched for the article.

At Gun Raffle, A Reminder Of Va. Tech
Firearms Worn and Protested at Event Attended by Hundreds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR200705...

"Finally! I can't wait for someone to shoot & kill me with their legal gun!"

Yeah, and I can defend myself with MY legal gun. Statistically violent gun crimes are committed with illegally bought or stolen guns. Now, citizens of D.C. can protect themselves against these violent offenders. Crime rate per capita in Texas (a big gun rights state)had 8.9 violent crimes per capita in 2006. Violent crime rates per capita in D.C. (toughest gun restrictions) was 66.29 in 2006. {http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/} I think these numbers are very telling. I believe everyone has a right to defend themselves and their home. I think there should be restrictions on the types and number of weapons but IMO an outright ban inflates crime rates.

Mel the idea is that if people carry a weapon when they get attacked, they can prevent the crime from happening. Crimes that don't happen don't get reported.

For instance, if someone attacks me and tries to rape me and I show them my gun (which in 92% of cases is enough to deter the assailant) and then run away, then the crime didn't happen.

So even if the criminal has an illegal gun, the citizen is still protected. At the end of the day thats what matters to me.

Cabaker, I'm with you. If you do a Google book search, tons of books come up that show a negative correlation between gun ownership and crime rates. All of the books use scientific methods, not just anecdotes.

Oh by the way, I would never say that owning a gun should be mandatory, thats someone's personal choice. I was just using that as another example.

lilkim i hear ya! i read a book about concealed carry and thats where that 92% figure came from... I was shocked! Just SHOWING an attacker a gun is effective enough 92% of the time.

Thats amazing.

CONCEALED TRUTH

Concealed Weapons Laws and Trends in Violent Crime in the United States

Executive Summary

For years, the National Rifle Association and other gun lobby groups have devoted enormous resources to convincing state legislatures that loosening the restrictions on the concealed carrying of weapons (CCW) would make their states and their citizens safer. Next legislative session, it is anticipated that several states will consider National Rifle Association backed legislation that would allow virtually anyone to carry a loaded, concealed weapon almost anywhere in the state.

The gun lobby has contended for years that more guns make for less crime. That slogan is actually the paraphrased title of a book by Dr. John Lott, formerly of the University of Chicago, which claims that greatly easing restrictions on concealed-carry handguns led to large decreases in crime. Although flaws in his research have been widely documented in scientific literature — and his findings dismissed by a growing list of prominent researchers — the gun lobby successfully used it to persuade several state legislatures to loosen CCW restrictions in the mid-90's.

This study conducted by The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (formerly the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence) has concluded that Dr. Lott and the gun lobby have got it all wrong: allowing people to carry concealed handguns does not mean less crime. The study's key findings are as follows:

For several years now, the nation's crime rate has fallen – but the drop in crime has not been spread equally throughout the country. As a group, states that chose to fight crime by loosening their concealed weapons laws had a significantly smaller drop in crime than states which looked to other means to attack crime in their communities.

Violent crime actually rose in 3 of 11 states (27%) that relaxed CCW laws prior to 1992 over the six years beginning in 1992, compared to a similar rise in violent crime in only 4 of 22 states (18%) which had restrictive CCW laws or did not permit the carrying of concealed weapons.

Between 1992 through 1998 (the last six years for which data exists), the violent crime rate in the strict and no-issue states fell 30% while the violent crime rate for states that liberalized carry laws prior to 1992 dropped half as much — by 15%. Nationally, the violent crime rate fell 25%.

Additionally, the robbery rate also fell faster in states with strict carry laws. Our analysis found that between 1992 and 1998, the robbery rate in strict and no issue states fell 44% while the robbery rate for the states that liberalized carry laws prior to 1992 dropped 24%. Nationally, the robbery rate fell 37%.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/research/?page=conctruth&menu=gvr

I shouldn't have to own a gun to be safe. It is my personal opinion that guns are bad & the only way I'd touch one is for you to put one in my cold, dead hand. But the only way the crime rate will go down under Cabaker's theory is if everyone has one ready & available to shoot the perp. Personally, I don't want anyone in DC owning guns-- now criminals have more access to guns because guess what? Criminals steal, too! They will break into your house & steal your legal gun. This is a superficial fix to a serious societal problem...if it's a fix at all.

Of course the Brady study would not show a negative correlation, but countless scientific studies have.

The brady campaign is the biggest propaganda website when it comes to gun control. If you look closely they have plenty of "facts" but very few actual citations.

As a LIFE-LONG resident of Washington, DC...this makes me SICK!!!

The Brady study is not the only one that came to this finding.
But it is a comparison of crime rates between states with concealed carry laws and those that don't allow concealed weapons. Are you suggesting they made up the actual numbers?

Criminals will be a lot more likely to steal if they don't have to worry about whether there will be a gun in the home.

Sure, they could break into your house and steal your legal gun... or you could point at them when they break into your house and they would steal nothing.

So now I can't even leave my house? I have to stand guard by the door with my gun?

After the slap in the face of child victims of rape that the Supreme Court served up yesterday, its good to see them redeem themselves today.

jav - not everyone needs to have a gun, but a criminal WILL think twice if they think that someone MIGHT have a gun. Ever wondered why shootings happen in shopping malls? Schools? DC? Because a criminal knows with 100% certainty that NO ONE there has a gun. You take that certainty away, and all of sudden they will think twice.

Of course criminals steal, thats why you have a gun lock and a gun safe. And anyone who wants a weapon permit in most states needs to go to classes to learn that and most gun owners realize the power of their weapon and respect it.

Sorry dudes, i just can't be down with guns. Too many ways for little kids to get into their parent's gun stash and shoot themselves. Too much dependence on the the threat of violence for your safety as opposed to the (much harder) task of working in your community to make reasons for violence dissipate.

Yeah, take your gun for hunting and what have you, but when it comes to using guns to reduce violence, it's just an easy cop-out to instill fear instead of bringing the community together to work on solutions.

Jav- That's the great thing about having the right to own. The criminal now knows everyone can own, but doesn't know who owns a gun. Even though I live in Hunter Country, I will never own a gun. I am happy that those who want or feel they need a gun have the ability to own one.

I can offer other places you can go to see similar results but you won't like those sources either. Just keep trusting the NRA. Ignore actual crime statistics.

Nica - More children are killed by swimming pools every year than by firearms.

Lili, offer other sources. Offering something from the Brady people is like me offering something from the NRA to prove my point. (By the way, I am fully confident that for every study you offer, I can offer at least one, but probably more, that show the negative correlation.)

Nica - I have a little experience with that. One of our parishoners killed himself with his parent's rifle. He broke into the gun cabinet to get the gun, broke into the safe to get the bullets, and used the only rifle in the house that didn't have a trigger lock. If he hadn't been home alone at the time, this would've been prevented.

Cab, that doesn't mean that guns should still be in houses. Even one child killed by their parent's handgun is too many.

Lil - Those are not actual statistics, they have NO SOURCE other than being on the brady campaign website. Did you see footnotes? Cuz I didn't.

My statistics come from places like justthefacts.com and state's department of justice... as well as the NUMEROUS books on the subject.

But if you'd like to keep living in ignorance, thats cool with me.

The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

This bill means nothing to the criminal mind.

And last I checked...hunting is STILL illegal in the District!!!!

Seeing as Harvard isn't exactly known as a bastion of conservative thought, I doubt Harvard researchers would slant their study toward the more conservative viewpoint.

that's terrible UnDave!

Yes, hunting is illegal in the district because there are really no "huntable" areas anywhere within the district. A short drive to VA or MD provides a lot of areas where hunting is legal.

But Nica isn't than emotional response to the tragedy of a gun accident? Yes, its sad. Yes, its tragic, but so is a child killed in a car accident and yet we all still drive.

We need to get past the horror of a child dying that way and look at the obvious and well documented benefits of a person's right to own a firearm.

lilkim - i read something in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy that had the same basic scope, but it had a different title... grrrr, can't think of it now.

Ugh, this whole thing just feels like taking it back to the Wild West - what about law enforcement? Don't they have a role in this?

So what, now if my neighbor pisses me off, i can just pull a gun on him and it will all be okay because i'm "protecting" myself? BULLSH*T! There are much better ways to counter these problems than using guns...

Nica, the decision specifically states that self defense laws can still be heavily regulated.

Ultimately its up to the gun owner to be responsible, keep their safety lock on, keep their ammo in a different place, and own a gun safe.

The majority of gun owners practice these safety measures and their children are perfectly safe.

You guys give criminals a lot of credit. I doubt they are thinking through the consequences of their actions. Besides, we're pretty liberal here in DC & everyone I know supports the gun ban. How many of us are actually going to go out & buy guns? I think the criminals are still pretty safe.

okay, gotta go eat lunch now. My basic gist is not against hunters or what have you, but using guns to combat violence in communities. Does that make sense? Why not use other methods like education, community volunteering, etc. to ease issues instead of bringing more guns into the picture?

I'm just reminded of that Ghandi quote: "an eye for an eye makes the world blind."